Les Miserables Love: A toast to the musical for people who don’t like musicals

Les Miserables: A toast to the musical for people who don't like musicals

I woke up just before 7 a.m. on Thursday and went directly to my computer. After it booted up, I went to YouTube and entered the following search term: “Four Valjeans.” The first result was the one I was looking for: Colm Wilkinson, Alfie Boe, Simon Bowman and John Owen-Jones performing Bring Him Home during the encore of the 25th anniversary concert of Les Misérables in London in 2010. Look it up now, I’ll wait; it will provide a nice soundtrack to what follows. Besides, as I type these words, several hours later, I am listening to the performance again.

I hardly watch movies more than once; I’ve only re-read a handful of books; and while I’ll listen to a song I like ad nauseum when it first comes out, I’ll usually delete it from my iPod after a week or so. The only thing I can safely say I’ll never, ever tire of is Les Misérables, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boubli’s renowned musical, based on Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel.

Somewhere in Oshawa, Ont., probably in my parent’s basement, lies hidden a cassette of the 1987 Broadway cast recording. It was the soundtrack of long car trips, visits to relatives and cross-continent family vacations to Florida. I knew every melody and lyric (the ribald joy of Master of the House; the unfulfilled yearning of On My Own) and character (the doomed Fantine; the tortured Javert) years before I ever saw the theatrical production. I daydreamed of being cast as the street urchin Gavroche in the Toronto production (I still know every word of Look Down). Alas, I have the world’s worst singing voice.

as I’ve grown older, I’ve encountered a remarkable number of young, otherwise Broadway-eschewing men who share my Les Mis love

This obsession followed me from adolescence to adulthood. I’m still not sure why. I don’t enjoy musicals all that much, and, as far as productions go, there’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about Les Mis. The melodies, while fantastic, are repetitive. The (English) lyrics are hokey. The characters (except, perhaps, for Valjean and Javert) are one-dimensional. It is painfully earnest. The musical strips away the nuance, and eloquence, of Hugo’s thousand-plus-page novel.

Yet whenever I come across the PBS broadcast of the aforementioned 25th anniversary concert, I’m absorbed for the next four hours. I only began watching How I Met Your Mother after seeing the clip of superfans Jason Segel (as Valjean) and Neil Patrick Harris (as Javert) launch into a (surprisingly good) rendition of The Confrontation on a morning TV talk show (see below).

I often thought I was the only one. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve encountered a remarkable number of young, otherwise Broadway-eschewing men who share my Les Mis love. I bonded with my university roommate over the soundtrack; we would get drunk and start singing Do You Hear The People Sing at house parties. This past week, when I told friends I was thinking of writing this confession, one of them just started nodding his head vigorously, high-fived me, then asked if he could accompany me to the movie.

Indeed, I’ve been counting down the days until to the release of Tom Hooper’s big-screen version like an astronaut waiting to blast off into outer space — with a mixture of unbridled excitement and trepidation. What if it was awful? Fortunately I saw it on Wednesday night, and I am happy to report it’s excellent. Not perfect, but better than it should be considering the lesser vocal talents of the cast.

Hugh Jackman cannot match the power of past Valjeans — it is almost criminal to have him share the screen with Wilkinson, who has a cameo — but he is competent. Anne Hathaway is an outstanding Fantine. Eddie Redmayne and Aaron Tveit are great as the wannabe revolutionaries Marius and Enjolras. And Russell Crowe? Well, he tries really hard.

I’ll probably see it again. And soon. So if you happen to be sitting in a darkened theatre in Toronto over the next few weeks and begin to hear a person sing, sorry, it’s probably me. [Editor’s note: Or me!]